Mr. Nestor's Letter
"Got t' git a good strong box fo' dish yeah," murmured Eradicate, as he
looked at the beautiful mahogany present Tom had turned over to him to
take to Mary. "Mah Landy! Dat suttinly am nice; Ah! Um! Jest laik some
ob de old mahogany furniture dat was in our fambily down Souf."
Eradicate did not mean his family, exactly, but the one in which he had
been a slave.
"Yassum, dat shore am nice!" he went on, talking to himself as he
admired the present. "I shore got t' put dat in a good box! An' dish
year note, too. Let's see what it done say on de outside."
Eradicate held the envelope carefully upside down, and read--or rather
pretended to read--the name and address. Eradicate knew well enough
where Mary lived, for this was not the first time he had gone there
with messages from his young master.
"Massa Tom shore am a fine writer," mused the negro, as he slowly
turned the envelope around. "I cain't read nobody's writin' but hisen,
nohow."
Had Eradicate been strictly honest with himself, he would have
confessed that he could not read any writing, or printing either. His
education had been very limited, but one could show him, say, a printed
sign and tell him it read "Danger" or "Five miles to Branchville," or
anything like that, and the next time he saw it, Eradicate would know
what that sign said. He seemed to fix a picture of it in his mind,
though the letters and figures by themselves meant nothing to him. So
when Tom told him the envelope contained the name and address of Miss
Nestor, Eradicate needed nothing more.
He rummaged about in some odds and ends in the corner of the
laboratory, and brought out a strong, wooden box, which had a cover
that screwed down.
"Dat'll be de ticket!" Eradicate exclaimed. "De mahogany present will
jest fit." Eradicate took some excelsior to pad the box, and then,
dropping inside it the gift, already wrapped in tissue paper, he
proceeded to screw on the cover.
There was something printed in red letters on the outside box, but
Eradicate could not read, so it did not trouble him.
"Dat Miss Nestor shore will laik her present," he murmured. "An' I'll
be mighty keerful ob it' laik Massa Tom tole me. He wouldn't trust dat
big lummox Koku wif anyt'ing laik dis."
Screwing on the cover, and putting a piece of wrapping paper outside
the rough, wooden box, with the letter in his hand, Eradicate, full of
his own importance, set off for Miss Nestor's house. Tom had not
returned from the telephone, over which he was talking to Mr. Titus.
The message was an important one. The contractor said he had received
word from his brother in Peru that his presence was urgently needed
there.
"Could you arrange to get off sooner than we planned, Tom?" asked Mr.
Titus. "I am afraid something has happened down there. Have you sent
the first shipment of explosive?"
"Yes, that went three days ago. It ought to arrive at Lima soon after
we do. Why yes, I can start to-night if we have to. I'll find out if
Mr. Damon can be with us on such short notice."
"I wish you would," came from Mr. Titus. "And say, Tom, do you think
you could take that giant Koku with you?"
"Why?"
"Well, I think he'd come in handy. There are some pretty rough
characters in those Andes Mountains, and your big friend might be
useful."
"All right. I was thinking of it, anyhow. Glad you mentioned it. Now
I'll call up Mr. Damon, and I'll let you know, in an hour or so, if he
can make it."
"Bless my hair brush, yes, Tom!" exclaimed the eccentric man, when told
of the change in plans. "I can leave to-night as well as not."
Word to this effect was sent on to Mr. Titus, and then began some
hurrying on the part of Tom Swift. He told Koku to get ready to leave
for New York at once, where he and the giant would join Mr. Titus and
Mr. Damon, and start across the continent to take for steamer for Lima,
Peru.
"Rad, did you send that present to Miss Nestor?" asked Tom, later, as
he finished packing his grip.
"Yas, sah. I done did it. Took it mase'f!"
"That's good! I guess I'll have to say good-bye to Mary over the
telephone. I won't have time to call. I'm glad I thought of the
present."
Tom got the Nestor house on the wire. But Mary was not in.
"There's a package here for her," said the girl's mother. "Did you--?"
"Yes, I sent that," Tom said. "Sorry I won't be able to call and say
good-bye, but I'm in a terrible rush. I'll see her as soon as I get
back, and I'll write as soon as I arrive."
"Do," urged Mrs. Nestor. "We'll all be glad to hear from you," for Tom
and Mary were tentatively engaged to be married.
Tom and Koku went on with their hurried preparations to leave for New
York. Eradicate begged to be taken along, but Tom gently told the
faithful old servant that it was out of the question.
"Besides, Rad," he said, "it's dangerous in those Andes Mountains. Why,
they have birds there, as big as cows, and they can swoop down and
carry off a man your size."
"Am dat shorely so, Massa Tom?"
"Of course it is! You get the dictionary and read about the condors of
the Andes Mountains."
"Dat's what I'll do, Massa Tom. Birds as big as cows what kin pick up a
man in dere beaks, an' carry him off! Oh, my! No, sah, Massa Tom! I
don't want t' go. I'll stay right yeah!"
Shortly before Tom and Koku departed for the railroad station, where
they were to take a train for New York, Mary Nestor returned home.
"Tom called you on the telephone to say good-bye," her mother informed
her, "and said he was sorry he could not see you. But he sent some sort
of gift."
"Oh, how sweet of him!" Mary exclaimed. "Where is it?"
"On the dining room table. Eradicate brought it with a note."
Mary read the note first.
In it Tom begged Mary to accept the little token, and to think of him
when she used it.
"Oh! I wonder what it can be," she cried in delight.
"Better open it and see," advised Mr. Nestor, who had come in at that
moment.
Mary cut the string of the outside paper, and folded back the wrapper.
A wooden box was exposed to view, a solid, oblong, wooden box, and on
the top, in bold, red letters Mary, her father and her mother read:
DYNAMITE! HANDLE WITH CARE!
"Oh! Oh!" murmured Mrs. Nestor.
"Dynamite! Handle with care!" repeated Mr. Nestor, in a sort of dazed
voice. "Quick! Get a pail of water! Dump it in the bathtub! Soak it
good, and then telephone for the police. Dynamite! What does this mean?"
He rushed toward the kitchen, evidently with the intention of getting a
pail of water, but Mary clasped him by the arm.
"Father!" she exclaimed. "Don't get so excited!"
"Excited!" he cried. "Who's excited? Dynamite! We'll all be blown up!
This is some plot! I don't believe Tom sent this at all! Look out! Call
the police! Excited! Who's getting excited?"
"You are, Daddy dear!" said Mary calmly. "This is some mistake. Tom did
send this--I know his writing. And wasn't it Eradicate who brought this
package, Mother?"
"Yes, my dear. But your father is right. Let him put it in water, then
it will be safe. Oh, we'll all be blown up. Get the water!"
"No!" cried Mary. "There is some mistake. Tom wouldn't send me
dynamite. There must be a present for me in there. Tom must have put
it in the wrong box by mistake. I'm going to open it."
Mary's calmness had its effect on her parents. Mr. Nestor cooled down,
as did his wife, and a closer examination of the outer box did not seem
to show that it was an infernal machine of any kind.
"It's all a mistake, Daddy," Mary said. "I'll show you. Get me a screw
driver."
After some delay one was found, and Mr. Nestor himself opened the box.
When the tissue paper wrappings of the mahogany gift were revealed he
gave a sigh of relief, and when Mary undid the wrappings, and saw what
Tom had sent her, she cried:
"Oh, how perfectly dear! Just what I wanted! I wonder how he knew? Oh,
I just love it!" and she hugged the beautiful box in her arms.
"Humph!" exclaimed Mr. Nestor, a slowly gathering light of anger
showing in his eyes. "It is a nice present, but that is a very poor
sort of joke to play, in my estimation."
"Joke! What joke?" asked Mary.
"Putting a present in a box labeled Dynamite, and giving us such a
scare," went on her father.
"Oh, Father, I'm sure he didn't mean to do it!" Mary said, earnestly.
"Well, maybe he didn't! He may have thought it a joke, and he may not
have! But, at any rate, it was a piece of gross carelessness on his
part, and I don't care to consider for a son-in-law a young man as
careless as that!"
"Oh, Daddy!" expostulated Mary.
"Now, now! Tut, tut!" exclaimed Mr. Nestor. "It isn't your fault, Mary,
but this Tom Swift must be taught a lesson. He was careless, if nothing
worse, and, for all he knew, there might have been some stray bits of
dynamite in that packing box. It won't do! It won't do! I'll write him
a letter, and give him a piece of my mind!"
And in spite of all his wife and his daughter could say, Mr. Nestor did
write Tom a scathing letter. He accused him of either perpetrating a
joke, or of being careless, or both, and he intimated that the less he
saw of Tom at the Nestor home hereafter the better pleased he would be.
"There! I guess that will make him wish he hadn't done it!" exclaimed
Mr. Nestor, as he called a messenger and sent the letter to Tom's house.
Mary and her mother did not know the contents of the note, but Mary
tried to get Tom on the wire and explain. However, she was unable to
reach him, as Tom was on the point of leaving.
The messenger, with Mr. Nestor's letter, arrived just as our hero was
receiving the late afternoon mail from the postman, and just as Tom and
Koku were getting in an automobile to leave for the depot.
"Good-bye, Dad!" Tom called. "Good-bye, Mrs. Baggert!" He thrust Mr.
Nestor's letter, unopened, together with some other mail matter, which
he took to be merely circulars, into an inner pocket, and jumped into
the car.
Tom and Koku were off on the first stage of their journey.